Thursday, July 18, 2013

"If You Are Reading This, YOU Are The Resistance."

Alexei Navalny

I know a lot of you Russian readers like to lurk and read my blog, спасибо! So let's get to it.
I was pretty shocked when I read that Alexei Navalny, Russian blogger and activist was sentenced to five years in prison for what is seen as a politically motivated charge. I started noticing Navalny last year, when I wrote about him in this post; The Polygon: Putin's Witch Hunt
To be honest I thought maybe Putin would have slipped him a Polonium Cocktail, Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Navalny, has been sentenced to five years precisely, to keep him out of the next Presidential election in Russia.
What I liked best was this; "The White House called it part of a "disturbing trend aimed at suppressing dissent". (Reuters) A little Snowden anyone? But I digress.Navalny is a really interesting guy. He had the balls to call out Russian politicians and call them the Party of Swindlers and Thieves. Russians are already protesting in the streets.This is a picture from a while ago. This protester belongs to the group FEMEN and they protest topless. I think way more people in the US would go to more protests if we started protesting Russian Style!

I love the look on Putins face!

Navalny is a brilliant guy and was planning to run in an election this fall as mayor of Moscow. "He was a fellow at Yale University in 2010, first came to wide
attention for vigorous blogging about corruption. He was a top leader
of the wave of massive protest rallies that broke out in late 2011 after
a national parliamentary election scarred by allegations of widespread
fraud." This article in Perthnow will tell you more. I also read that Alexei Navalny used to buy up shares of stock and go to board meetings and berate corrupt CEO's. I bet he made a lot of enemies. I feel for him and his family and millions of Russians he inspired. I am sure there is a lot of outrage all over the world about this farce of a trial. I fear for his life. This is what can happen in Russia when you dissent. How far behind are we in America with a Post Office photographing your mail? An NSA gathering metadata, cellphone towers monitoring your movements along with traffic cameras. They are saving that information for something and it looks like Putin didn't even need anything that sophisticated to put Alexei Navalny away. The only thing this will do is the same it did for Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King, Ghandi, you can't put out a light that shines on the people. I am really sorry this happened to him. If anyone has anything to add that I missed feel free to comment. Just remember what Alexei wrote, "If you are reading this, you are the resistance."